


Let's Get Ready to Rumble

by iaminarage



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Robots, robotics team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-18 22:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1445629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iaminarage/pseuds/iaminarage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first day of the Buckeye Regional looks like it’s going to be just like any other day for Kurt Hummel, until he finds out that the driver for the Dalton robotics team is very interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Get Ready to Rumble

**Author's Note:**

> This is an FIRST Robotics Competition AU (just go with it). The First Robotics competition is an international high school robotics competition in which teams build robots weighing up to 120lbs which are designed to play a different game each year. If you’re not familiar with FIRST, that’s probably all the info you need although there are links in the end notes. If you are: the game is Rebound Rumble and I’ve tried to use team numbers that aren’t assigned. Liberties have probably been taken.
> 
> Thanks to Marauder-in-Warblerland and loveinisolation for the beta.
> 
> This fic was written for the Glee Write What You Know Fest because I did robotics in high school and it is the best thing ever.

**March 2012**

Kurt’s plans for the first day of the Buckeye Regional were the same as his plans for the first day of every regional. He unloaded the robot first thing in the morning, checked to make sure everything was all set, got it through robot inspection, and then went to sit in the stands to watch practice matches. He planned to spend the late morning and afternoon watching to see which teams had impressive robots and waiting for his team to break their robot so that he’d have to drag himself out of the stands to fix it.

Until that happened, which it inevitably would, he was French braiding Rachel’s hair. Their first practice match was at 10:45 am and Rachel needed her hair out of her eyes.

“Aren’t you guys going to do anything useful?” Tina asked.

“He’s useful to me,” Rachel replied, not looking at Tina.

“Can’t you just do scouting without an argument for once?” Tina had been stuck with the job of convincing all the team members to do scouting: taking notes on other robots at the event so that they would know which robots were the best.

Kurt twisted the hair tie around the bottom of Rachel’s braid and pushed on her shoulders so that she’d get out of the chair. “Can’t Tina, sorry!” Rachel said. “We have a match coming up, and I have a robot to drive!” Then she flounced out of the stands.

Tina sighed and flopped into a chair. “Next year, when you guys graduate, I’m finally going to drive!”

“Only if you guys manage to build a robot without us,” Kurt said with a laugh, but he moved over to sit next to Tina so that she wouldn’t feel alone. “There’s no point in scouting on practice day, and you know it. Half of the robots won’t work or won’t make their matches. Why don’t we scout for hot drivers instead?”

“As long as you don’t tell Mike,” Tina said, and then she settled in to set up her scouting binder while she watched.

A few minutes later, the rest of the team joined them in the stands. Most of them had been off making sure the robot was as ready as it could be for its first match, but now the robot and the drivers were waiting to go on the field, so there was nothing left for them to do.

“How did it go?” Kurt asked when they all sat down.

“Well it looks good, but we’ll see if it actually does anything,” Santana replied. Santana and her girlfriend, Brittany, made up their electronics team, so they did most of the wiring on the robot.

Lauren snorted. “It’ll do _something_. The real question is what Berry and Hudson are going to try to make it do.”

Rachel and Finn were actually good drivers, especially with Artie as their coach, but there was a lot of drama in the group about the fact that no one else ever got to try out to drive.

The first fifteen seconds of the match were the autonomous mode, where the robots were programmed to drive themselves and score points and none of the human drivers were allowed to touch the controls. McKinley’s robot was supposed to drive forward a few feet and shoot three balls into a high basketball hoop.

When the opening chime sounded, instead of driving forward, the McKinley RoboTitans watched in horror as their robot spun itself around in a circle and then took off to ram itself into the side of the arena with an audible bang. Kurt flinched and turned back to Lauren, who was fuming that her program had failed. “That better not have damaged my chassis,” Kurt said with a glare.

“I’ll damage your chassis if you don’t shut up,” Lauren replied, turning her attention back to the field where Finn and Rachel had taken over the controls. They actually did pretty well considering that it had been a month since they’d been able to drive the robot. They drove over to Mike, the human player, who fed balls into the robot, and then they sped across the field to score. They repeated this process several times before the last 20 seconds of the match, when they turned their attention to getting bonus points by balancing the robot on a ramp before the buzzer sounded.

As soon as the match ended and the referees signaled for everyone to clear the field, Lauren, Kurt, Sam, and Quinn took off for the pits. The drivers would be bringing the robot back there any minute and Lauren would immediately want to start reworking the autonomous program to figure out what had gone wrong. Kurt was the leader of the build team, which meant that he was in charge of the physical body of the robot, and Sam and Quinn were his most useful team members. Kurt wanted to check to see if the robot had been damaged when it hit the wall at the start of the match.

It was only about twenty minutes before he got back to the stands to sit in between Mercedes and Tina. “How’s the hot driver scouting going?” Kurt asked them.

“Nothing so far,” Mercedes said with a sigh. “Although there is a team full of guys in cheerleader skirts. How’s the robot?”

At a robotics competition, almost nothing that anyone wore was a surprise. Guys in cheerleader skirts weren’t even interesting when there was a guy running around in spandex dressed as a turtle. “The robot is fine. It actually wasn’t damaged. Autonomous is a mess, though. I think Lauren is going to kill anyone who gets in her way.”

“So Finn is dead then,” Tina said with a snort.

“You know Finn is my boy,” Puck said from behind them, “but it’s a miracle she’s let him live this long.”

Everyone laughed because, of course, it was completely true. Kurt was interrupted by Tina poking him in the shoulder and whispering, “Hot driver alarm!” She pointed at the field where one of the drivers for the TechnoWarblers from Dalton Academy was bending over to set up the team’s robot. “He was facing this way when I said that.”

“Sure he was,” Mercedes said with a laugh. When Dalton’s driver turned back around, Kurt had to admit that he _was_ hot. Tina had good taste.

“Let’s see how their robot does,” Kurt replied and then settled in to watch the match. He actually ended up watching the hot driver a fair amount, though. The TechnoWarblers’ robot couldn’t seem to score any points. It would drive over, get set up, and then miss all three shots. Hot Driver was visibly getting more and more frustrated each time the ball missed the basket.

When the teams started to pull their robots off the field after the match, Kurt stood up. “Where are you going, Hummel?” Santana asked.

“I have a feeling that Dalton might need some help making their robot … do anything,” he replied.

Santana snorted. “Yeah, sure. You’re not going just to see if you can sweep Hot Driver off his feet by fixing his ‘bot.”

“I’m sure that Kurt is just trying to embody the ideals of F.I.R.S.T. by helping his competitors do their best,” Rachel replied, patting him on the arm as he climbed over her.

Kurt had finally made it to the aisle and he rolled his eyes. “A robot is clearly not working. I’m going to go see if I can make the robot work. The end.” Then he left before they could say anything else.

* * *

 

“Where’d the rest of your team go?” Kurt asked when he found Hot Driver alone in the Dalton pit glaring angrily into the inner workings of the robot.

“They left an important tool box in the van. I sent them all to go get it so that I wouldn’t have to deal with them for a while,” Hot Driver responded without looking up.

Kurt wasn’t sure if this guy was amusing or a complete douche. “You know they’re probably just going to end up finding food and never coming back, right?”

“At this point, I’m kind of banking on it. Although they do owe me a Mountain Dew.” Hot Driver finally looked up at him. “Who are you, by the way?”

“Kurt Hummel. The leader of team 347’s build team,” he replied, holding out his hand.

Hot Driver wiped his hand on his shirt and then took Kurt’s hand and shook it. Kurt decided that he had a good handshake. “Sebastian Smythe. Driver and programmer for team 717,” he said, pointing at the team number above his head. “Although I do plenty of building.”

“So I’m guessing you’re trying to figure out how to make your robot actually score points?” Kurt asked.

Sebastian glared at the machine in question as if it were its fault that it wasn’t any good. “Yeah, we’d actually planned on it having that ability.”

“Mind if I take a look?” Sebastian nodded, so Kurt walked around the robot and peered into the body. “Honestly, I think the double barreled shooter is the problem.” The Dalton robot was built with the ability to shoot two balls at once, but Kurt had a feeling that trying to line the robot up so that it was able to shoot from both sides meant that it was actually not really aiming either side at the basket.

“I hate that fucking thing. It doesn’t even make sense when the robot is only allowed to hold three balls at a time. But I guess it’s similar to what they did back in 2006, and it worked then, so I was outvoted.”

Kurt nodded and took another look at the shooter. “I almost think that you could just disable one side entirely, and then you’d actually be able to aim with the other. It doesn’t seem like it’s having trouble getting the balls up there. They just don’t go near the basket.”

Sebastian perked up immediately and came to stand next to Kurt. “That might actually work! It wouldn’t be that hard to do mechanically, and I’d just have to adjust the coding to aim correctly. But I’ve been adjusting it to try to get it to aim at all for ages, so that’s not really any more work.”

Kurt and Sebastian got to work figuring out how to fix the robot. It turned out that they worked well together, bouncing ideas off of each other and building on them easily while making notes over each other’s shoulders on the same piece of paper. Kurt was kind of surprised. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so energized by working with someone. By the time most of Sebastian’s team returned with the second tool box, Kurt and Sebastian had come up with a plan. Kurt left them to it around lunch time, but he went back to check on them a few more times that afternoon. By their last practice match of the day, the robot was actually scoring at a pretty good clip.

When Kurt went down to the pit to take one more look at his own robot before they left for the night, Sebastian chased him down, causing one of the volunteers to shout “NO RUNNING” at him. “Hey Kurt, thanks for your help. There’s no way I would have been able to fix that disaster without you.”

“No problem,” Kurt replied with a laugh. “I had to keep myself busy somehow with my team managing to _not_ break our robot.”

Sebastian reached out and rested a hand on Kurt’s bicep. “You should find me tomorrow if you have time,” he said, and then he backed away grinning at Kurt the entire way.

Kurt was dumbfounded. Sebastian had definitely been flirting with him. Was Sebastian _gay_? Kurt was pretty sure the other boy hadn’t mentioned it, but he wasn’t sure what else to assume.

* * *

 

Kurt had ditched his team uniform of khaki pants and a red t-shirt in favor tight black pants, a purple button down, and a scarf before they went out for their team dinner. He ended up being very thankful for his foresight when he ran into Sebastian in the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn. Kurt stopped short in surprise when Sebastian walked over to him. The rest of his team shot him confused looks as they walked down the hallway except Santana, who just mouthed “wanky.”

Sebastian looked Kurt up and down and smiled at him. “Well, don’t you clean up nicely.”

“I can’t say that a bright red t-shirt is my best look,” Kurt replied, returning Sebastian’s smile. Sebastian was still wearing his team-issued navy polo and khakis, but it worked for him.

“I didn’t really object to that, either,” Sebastian said with a shrug. “Do you want to go to the lounge and grab a coffee?”

Kurt knew he should go back to his hotel room and get ready for bed, but he couldn’t help wanting to stay out in the lobby with Sebastian and try talking about something other than robots. He wanted to know if their easy rapport that afternoon had been a one-time thing or if it would still be there now. Not to mention the fact that, from the way Sebastian kept looking at him, Kurt was almost sure he was gay.

They ended up sitting in the lounge and talking for nearly three hours. During that time, Kurt learned that Sebastian was probably the snarkiest person he’d ever met but also that they really did get along well. It turned out that Sebastian was a junior and boarding at Dalton, but his parents lived in Elida, only a few miles from Lima.

It also became clear that Sebastian was definitely gay, definitely out, and definitely hitting on Kurt.

* * *

 

The next day, McKinley’s robot won all seven of its matches, scoring like crazy each time. Kurt couldn’t help but think that this time they might finally have a good shot at the world championship. He had to remind himself that, no matter how good your robot was, there was a lot of luck involved in getting the win.

Kurt saw Sebastian a couple of times in passing during the day, although he seemed pretty busy between driving and repairs. It wasn’t until the team social that night that Kurt really got to talk to him again.

“So, Kurt, are you going to hang out with us tonight, or are you planning to go cozy up to the competition some more?” Quinn asked with an evil glint in her eye that convinced Kurt that she knew exactly where he’d been until 11pm the night before.

“Neither,” Kurt replied with an eye roll. “It’s a team social. The point is to actually meet people from other teams. So I’m going to go meet people from other teams.” Then he started to walk away.

“Find out if he has any hot friends!” Lauren shouted after him.

Of course, Kurt immediately went and found Sebastian, who peeled off from his classmates as soon as he saw Kurt. They ended up eating their boxed dinners on the floor in one of the large halls because there weren’t enough tables. They sat cross-legged facing each other and picked up their conversation from the night before, talking about everything from music and movies to their families and teams.

The more they talked, the more Kurt liked Sebastian, both for his snarky humor and for how animated he was when the topic turned to something he loved. Kurt finally had to admit that he was quickly developing an unreasonable crush on this boy he barely knew. He decided to blame his habit of falling for overconfident nerds. It had gotten him into trouble more than once. Although, at least Sebastian was gay.

“So you’re a senior, right? Do you have plans?” Sebastian asked and then seemed to think about the question. “Unless you never want to be asked that question again.”

Kurt had to laugh. He’d definitely gotten that more than a few times over the last several months. “I don’t mind,” he said. “I was accepted early at WPI, which is my first choice. I’m planning on Robotics Engineering, so I’ll probably be going there. Definitely hoping for financial aid, though.”

“Yeah, WPI will probably be near the top of my list, too,” Sebastian said thoughtfully. “I assume you’re applying for F.I.R.S.T. scholarships?”

Kurt nodded. “I’m applying for anything that’ll help me get enough money to get the hell out of Ohio. What are you thinking of majoring in?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Computer Science, for sure. I’m deciding if I want to double major in Computer Engineering. And I’ll also be getting the fuck out of Ohio.”

“I knew you had good taste,” Kurt said with a laugh. He looked down at their food and realized that they were both finished eating. “Hey, do you want to walk around for a while?” he asked.

Sebastian nodded and stood, before reaching a hand out to pull Kurt up. Kurt couldn’t stop himself from thinking “Holy shit, he’s touching me,” over and over again. His brain went into overdrive when Sebastian didn’t drop his hand as they started to walk. He was pretty sure he missed the next thing Sebastian said because he was too busy trying to pretend he wasn’t freaking out about the fact that he was holding hands with a boy--a hot boy who he liked.

After walking around for a while, they found themselves alone in a smaller room with a giant fish tank on one wall. The only light in the room came from the tank and it cast wavy patterns across the room. Kurt found the whole thing very calming, so he pulled Sebastian over to the opposite side of the room from the tank and sat with his back against the wall. “I think I could live here,” he said, softly so as not to disturb the mood of the room.

“Definitely not the same feel as a robotics competition,” Sebastian replied with a soft laugh. Kurt caught his eye and smiled. Then he ended up watching the strange light move across Sebastian’s face for a minute. Sebastian was watching him, too, and Kurt noticed that Sebastian’s eyes kept darting away from his to glance down at Kurt’s lips. Kurt couldn’t help but hope that Sebastian was thinking what it seemed like he was thinking.

For once in his life, his hope was rewarded when Sebastian leaned in and pressed their lips together. Kurt had never really kissed anyone before, although he didn’t like to admit it, so he had no idea if it always felt like this. It felt like the rest of the world dropped away and the only thing he could think about—the only thing that mattered—was the feeling of having Sebastian’s mouth on his. He tried to follow Sebastian’s lead, but he had no idea if he was doing it right or not. He just wanted Sebastian to never stop kissing him.

Unfortunately, Sebastian pulled away much sooner than Kurt wanted him too and looked down at him with an awed expression. Kurt reached up hesitantly to push a lock of hair out of Sebastian’s eyes and said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Sebastian replied. “So that was … that went pretty well, right?”

Kurt broke into a smile. “I’d give it a gold star.”

“Listen,” Sebastian started and then shook his head. “I know we have that whole ‘going to school two hours away’ thing going on, but you have a car, and I have a car and … do you want to go out some time?”

Kurt couldn’t believe that he was actually being asked on an honest to god date. And by someone he really wanted to say yes to. The girls were going to freak out. He felt suddenly bold, so he said, “You’re just asking me that because you want an excuse to kiss me again.”

Sebastian laughed. “I do want to kiss you again. But that’s not the only reason I’m asking.”

“Well in that case, I’d love to go out with you,” Kurt said, grinning at Sebastian. “And you can, you know.”

“Can what?” Sebastian asked, looking puzzled.

“Kiss me again,” Kurt replied with a shrug. So Sebastian did.

* * *

 

**March 2020**

Kurt was standing just outside the pit at the Providence district competition on Thursday afternoon, watching the madness and waiting for the next call to come across the intercom when Marcie, the volunteer who he’d assigned to help him in his official capacity as Volunteer Coordinator, walked up to him. “I think the Head Robot Inspector hates me,” she said. “He keeps looking at me like I’ve mortally offended him.

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s just his face,” Kurt replied, sparing a glance over to the inspection station where Sebastian Smythe was rubbing his face with one hand and staring at a group of teenagers in green t-shirts. “Well, and he gets exhausted when people are being especially stupid.”

“If you don’t like people, wouldn’t you avoid a robotics competition?” Marcie asked.

Kurt shrugged. “He likes robots. And he finds robotics kids significantly less stupid than the general population. Also, if he didn’t go to district competitions, I don’t think he’d see his husband for the entire month.”

Marcie looked confused. “Husband?”

Instead of answering, Kurt just held his left hand out in front of them, showing off his wedding ring with a grin. He and Sebastian hadn’t even been married a year yet, so it hadn’t gotten old.

“Wait, you two are … oh! Wow. Aren’t you young to be married?”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment, but we’re not that young. Twenty-four and twenty-six, and we got together in high school,” Kurt replied. He still couldn’t believe that it had been eight years since they’d met. He always ended up wondering if there were any kids meeting their future spouses at events that he worked and hoping that he wouldn’t find them making out in some corner they thought was secluded.

Marcie glanced back at Sebastian and said, “So you must be used to that look?”

Kurt laughed. “So much that it barely even affects me. You can imagine how frustrating that is for him.”

Just then, a call came over their intercoms, so Kurt and Marcie both stopped to listen. Someone had misplaced the spare volunteer t-shirts. Since Marcie knew where they were, she ran off to get them.

Sebastian had apparently finished with the team in the green shirts, because he walked over to Kurt once Marcie left. “How are you holding up?” he asked.

“Not terrible,” Kurt said said, rolling his shoulders a bit. “Tired already.”

Sebastian laughed and stepped behind Kurt to press the heels of his hands along Kurt’s spine and start to massage his back. “You can’t get tired now, you know. It’s only Thursday.”

“You’re already scaring the children and it’s only Thursday,” Kurt replied. “Jesus, that feels good.”

“Yeah, well don’t start making pornographic sounds or anything; that’ll definitely scare the children.” Sebastian didn’t stop rubbing his back, though, so Kurt ignored his teasing. “And I’m not scaring the children. I’m doing an admirable job holding in my comments in the face of a team whose robot was thirty pounds overweight.”

“ _Thirty_ pounds?” Kurt asked, leaning back into Sebastian’s hands a bit. “How does that even happen?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. And I’m pretty sure your minion is just easily startled,” he said, pulling his hands away from Kurt’s back.

Kurt whined quietly when Sebastian pulled away. “Why did you stop?”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and gestured at the small line of teams by the inspection station. “Because I have robots to inspect, and you have disasters to handle?”

Kurt sighed, so Sebastian leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Don’t worry, I promise to make it up to you with the dirty version of that massage later.” Then he kissed Kurt on the cheek and headed back to his job.

**Author's Note:**

> Wikipedia has more info [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRST_Robotics_Competition), the official site is [here](usfirst.org), and the video that shows what they game they are playing is like is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYWscqruBRA). I’m happy to answer any questions (at least ones that don’t involve personally identifying information) on tumblr where my user name is also iaminarage.


End file.
